Extremely unfun fact: before even the Jews, they came for LGBTQ+ people. The first major Nazi book burning was at the Institute For Sexuality which, apart from being a research institute dealing with all sorts of “nonstandard” sexuality in a scholarly rather than punitive manner, was also the world’s first trans clinic.
The reason it’s not mentioned is that Pastor Niemöller, being a conservative pastor, didn’t see anything wrong with the persecution and erasure of LGBTQ+ people.
One of the reasons it’s important to remember that the LGBTQ+ community were the first targets of concerted Nazi erasure even though they were far from the first targets of nazi hatred and slander is that the GOP are doing the same thing and they’ll go through the rest of the list too if they aren’t stopped.
This is also why people think being trans is a “new” thing. The Institute For Sexuality was the first and only place performing research and on trans people and offering gender affirming care. When the Nazi book burnings happened, they burned the entirety of the world’s research on trans people.
Worth mentioning that Magnus Hirschfeld (guy who ran the Institute For Sexuality) was Jewish, and that is a big part of the reason why his institute was attacked. According to Nazi propaganda, his institute (and queerness in general) was a Jewish plot to weaken the white race.
Which goes to show, fascist propaganda hasn’t changed all that much since then!
Some LGBTQ+ people even vote for conservatives, as too do black, disabled, women, other non-white “minorities” (I put in quotes b/c white people are actually the minority in the USA now, but on the other hand that fact doesn’t seem to matter one bit to those who use that term the most… Edit: sorry I misremembered, it is only the under-18 crowd where that is true for now).
And these people are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED when the conservative party eventually turns on them. I know, shocking, right?
They don’t understand that the result of pyramid-thinking is by its very nature exclusive rather than inclusive (Innuendo Studios video “There’s Always a Bigger Fish” + Endnote video “The Origins of Conservatism”). They haven’t been excluded from it - YET! - but they will, it is only a matter of time. It’s karma. What is done - and allowed to be done - to others, can easily be done to YOU.
Ironically, Jesus Himself said “Treat others as you would wish they would do for you, in fact, even better than that - and nobody gets excluded from that”. Also the Bible says a bunch of other stuff - the worker deserves their wages, live & let live, and so, so much else that just flat gets ignored by the people using it as a club to beat someone with.
Okay yeah I misremembered my terms - whiteness is on its way out, and in fact the under-18 crowd has white as a minority already, though I forgot for a moment that the rest of the age groups won’t catch up until the next decade or two as the Boomers and such die off. White people tend to have fewer children than non-white people, so that’s just how that works.
More important is the fact that conservative voters are in the minority, and have been for a long time. While not precisely the same thing, it is somewhat related.
even with white people’s population plateauing, white people will be the largest single group for a good while. Also, while we are seeing the largest total growth from the latino population, and the largest growth per capita being asian, all demographic’s fertility rates drop after their family has been here for ~3 generations as they adjust to the cost of living. So we have white people as the most influential group for quite some time to come.
But, yes, people who identify as conservative republicans make up about 30% of the population. However, due to awful voter turn out, they represent much closer to 50% of the population that actively votes, because they are far more likely to do so per capita. So it will also be a while before their level of influence declines. That is, unless, we suddenly convince 60% of the population to take voting seriously.
However, due to awful voter turn out, they represent much closer to 50% of the population that actively votes
I realize you may not want to hear this from me after my mistake earlier, but I believe that is not true. The “popular vote” is also counted in each Presidential election, even though it does not determine anything, and the last time a Republican won that was 2004. For the last 20 years, people’s votes simply aren’t being counted, bc they tend to aggregate together in cities and university towns, rather than spread far out across hundreds of miles of farmland, as e.g. people in Idaho do.
If you live in an area that leans >80% one way or another, then I don’t blame people for not voting, bc their votes won’t affect anything whatsoever. Especially young people, who have a disproportionate hardship to “just get out and vote” - having to take time off from work (retired people don’t), college students may need to drive hundreds of miles to get “home” (which even if they do “often”, still has to coincide with voting time, and comes at cost of sleep, studying, homework, etc.), people with kids have to struggle with daycare, and so on.
If we truly wanted more people to vote, then as a nation we would encourage that - e.g. give everyone a break from work, have appropriately equipped (e.g. staffed) recipient stations, and/or better yet allow mail-in voting. Making votes from some particular areas “count” while those from other areas not count, is very much a feature that was designed - as the very people that did it freely admit, and continue to push forward all the time.
Put another way, voting turnouts heavily correlate with age, aka the ability to vote with greater ease.
take voting seriously
I guarantee you - bc it’s simply math - that if every single liberal Democrat were to get out and vote in the next election, thus representing the popular vote by 100% of the eligible people on that one side, it still would have extremely low impact on the actual end result. What would instead have a MASSIVE impact would be a bunch of liberals moving to a state like Texas, and rather than continue to vote from San Francisco or NYC, to influence the Electoral College system from that new location where it has a chance to actually flip it from red to blue, rather than reinforce the already blue still further.
Which has been happening lately - e.g. Austin - but also, I can’t blame people especially women who due to the overall lack of healthcare and toxicity of surrounding neighbors may not wish to do that.
All that said, yes overall engagement will be necessary to combat the issues facing us all - e.g. people need to step up and run for office, or else we end up getting the jokers that we currently have. But it’s nowhere near as simplistic as you make it sound, like all that would be needed would be to “vote”. imho at least!:-)
Extremely unfun fact: before even the Jews, they came for LGBTQ+ people. The first major Nazi book burning was at the Institute For Sexuality which, apart from being a research institute dealing with all sorts of “nonstandard” sexuality in a scholarly rather than punitive manner, was also the world’s first trans clinic.
The reason it’s not mentioned is that Pastor Niemöller, being a conservative pastor, didn’t see anything wrong with the persecution and erasure of LGBTQ+ people.
One of the reasons it’s important to remember that the LGBTQ+ community were the first targets of concerted Nazi erasure even though they were far from the first targets of nazi hatred and slander is that the GOP are doing the same thing and they’ll go through the rest of the list too if they aren’t stopped.
Also important to remember when people are talking about queer identities being a “new trend” or whatever
It’s not
We just got erased from history
This is also why people think being trans is a “new” thing. The Institute For Sexuality was the first and only place performing research and on trans people and offering gender affirming care. When the Nazi book burnings happened, they burned the entirety of the world’s research on trans people.
Worth mentioning that Magnus Hirschfeld (guy who ran the Institute For Sexuality) was Jewish, and that is a big part of the reason why his institute was attacked. According to Nazi propaganda, his institute (and queerness in general) was a Jewish plot to weaken the white race.
Which goes to show, fascist propaganda hasn’t changed all that much since then!
Some LGBTQ+ people even vote for conservatives, as too do black, disabled, women, other non-white “minorities” (
I put in quotes b/c white people are actually the minority in the USA now, but on the other hand that fact doesn’t seem to matter one bit to those who use that term the most…Edit: sorry I misremembered, it is only the under-18 crowd where that is true for now).And these people are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED when the conservative party eventually turns on them. I know, shocking, right?
They don’t understand that the result of pyramid-thinking is by its very nature exclusive rather than inclusive (Innuendo Studios video “There’s Always a Bigger Fish” + Endnote video “The Origins of Conservatism”). They haven’t been excluded from it - YET! - but they will, it is only a matter of time. It’s karma. What is done - and allowed to be done - to others, can easily be done to YOU.
Ironically, Jesus Himself said “Treat others as you would wish they would do for you, in fact, even better than that - and nobody gets excluded from that”. Also the Bible says a bunch of other stuff - the worker deserves their wages, live & let live, and so, so much else that just flat gets ignored by the people using it as a club to beat someone with.
71% of the US population is white.
Okay yeah I misremembered my terms - whiteness is on its way out, and in fact the under-18 crowd has white as a minority already, though I forgot for a moment that the rest of the age groups won’t catch up until the next decade or two as the Boomers and such die off. White people tend to have fewer children than non-white people, so that’s just how that works.
More important is the fact that conservative voters are in the minority, and have been for a long time. While not precisely the same thing, it is somewhat related.
even with white people’s population plateauing, white people will be the largest single group for a good while. Also, while we are seeing the largest total growth from the latino population, and the largest growth per capita being asian, all demographic’s fertility rates drop after their family has been here for ~3 generations as they adjust to the cost of living. So we have white people as the most influential group for quite some time to come.
But, yes, people who identify as conservative republicans make up about 30% of the population. However, due to awful voter turn out, they represent much closer to 50% of the population that actively votes, because they are far more likely to do so per capita. So it will also be a while before their level of influence declines. That is, unless, we suddenly convince 60% of the population to take voting seriously.
I realize you may not want to hear this from me after my mistake earlier, but I believe that is not true. The “popular vote” is also counted in each Presidential election, even though it does not determine anything, and the last time a Republican won that was 2004. For the last 20 years, people’s votes simply aren’t being counted, bc they tend to aggregate together in cities and university towns, rather than spread far out across hundreds of miles of farmland, as e.g. people in Idaho do.
If you live in an area that leans >80% one way or another, then I don’t blame people for not voting, bc their votes won’t affect anything whatsoever. Especially young people, who have a disproportionate hardship to “just get out and vote” - having to take time off from work (retired people don’t), college students may need to drive hundreds of miles to get “home” (which even if they do “often”, still has to coincide with voting time, and comes at cost of sleep, studying, homework, etc.), people with kids have to struggle with daycare, and so on.
If we truly wanted more people to vote, then as a nation we would encourage that - e.g. give everyone a break from work, have appropriately equipped (e.g. staffed) recipient stations, and/or better yet allow mail-in voting. Making votes from some particular areas “count” while those from other areas not count, is very much a feature that was designed - as the very people that did it freely admit, and continue to push forward all the time.
Put another way, voting turnouts heavily correlate with age, aka the ability to vote with greater ease.
I guarantee you - bc it’s simply math - that if every single liberal Democrat were to get out and vote in the next election, thus representing the popular vote by 100% of the eligible people on that one side, it still would have extremely low impact on the actual end result. What would instead have a MASSIVE impact would be a bunch of liberals moving to a state like Texas, and rather than continue to vote from San Francisco or NYC, to influence the Electoral College system from that new location where it has a chance to actually flip it from red to blue, rather than reinforce the already blue still further.
Which has been happening lately - e.g. Austin - but also, I can’t blame people especially women who due to the overall lack of healthcare and toxicity of surrounding neighbors may not wish to do that.
All that said, yes overall engagement will be necessary to combat the issues facing us all - e.g. people need to step up and run for office, or else we end up getting the jokers that we currently have. But it’s nowhere near as simplistic as you make it sound, like all that would be needed would be to “vote”. imho at least!:-)